Monday, August 4, 2014

Hard runs are hard....and other completely obvious revelations from my miserable 18 mile run on Sunday.

Heat and Humidity make runs hard

Last week was supposed to be my first 60+ mile week in as far back as Daily Mile goes in their weekly view. (The start of the year...7 months...yikes.) I came close at 55 miles, but couldn't quite get it due to an errant meeting that was scheduled over my 13 miler. Seriously, don't work people know that lunch is for running and not meetings!? Anyway, I might as well have ran a billion miles because that is what my long run felt like. As it turns out, 80 degrees and 75% humidity aren't ideal running conditions. Who knew!? My legs were like bricks and my breathing was much higher than it should have been. (If I get around to it, I have a post on "why" running in the heat is hard rolling around in my head.)

When it is hot, I sweat a LOT

I think we can all agree that I'm a hot mess. But, drama filled social life aside, I'm what is eloquently put as a "heavy sweater". I sweat before runs, while eating spicy food, yes even during "that", and even after showers trying to get ready. As a result, I always carry water when I run no matter the distance and during the heat and humidity common this time of year I always have to plan to refill the 40oz of water that I carry. But, when my shorts were already completely soaked after 4 miles, I knew that I was in for a tough one. Here are a few pics of me trying to cool off after 4 miles on Sunday:

So sweaty. Ugh, I look gross.

Wait, what am I grabbing in that first pic??

All told I drank 70oz of water with refills of my bottles at mile 4 and 9. I drank all I could while running, but still ended up losing 6 pounds (151.6 --> 145.2) before and after. Yikes. I tweeted about how most ultra marathons will only let you lose 5% of your body weight before they threaten to pull you. That was 4% for me. So yeah, I didn't pee until 2pm.

Patient running partners are a godsend

Finally, regardless of pace, no one wants to be the "slow guy/gal". When I ran with my 2:50 marathoner buddy Matt I was quick to tell him that he could "go ahead without me" at any time... which is exactly what I told my running partner Ryan when I bonked hard at mile 13. We had been running pretty consistent 7:40 miles up until that point when the wheels fell off my run. I took a quick break to eat a gel, which then turned into a walk break, which resulted in slowing down the pace by 45 sec/mile....and then walking at every road crossing... My 7:40s turned into 9:30s including the walking.

Normally we'll chat about running, family, beer, (not necessarily in that order) and other various things (not as much about booty shorts as you'd expect), but I was pretty silent those last few miles. The only thing that snapped me out of it was running into twitter buddy Emily. Before then, Ryan was quick to point out that he didn't care how fast we went and that the walk breaks were just fine. Which, was a good thing, since I really couldn't do a ton about the walk breaks!

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That run was probably one of the worst runs that I've had in 6 months. I think what frustrated me the most was how quickly I went from "this is hard" to "omg, I'm dying". A lot of it was the conditions but even more of it was mental. I'm going to try to work in more marathon paced runs and progression runs to try to work on my mental game and tackle it again in a few weeks!

Legaleeeeese

This blog is meant for entertainment purposes only.For that matter, it even does that half-assed.I am happy to provide advice and tips, but have no technical "training" to provide medical or professional advice.So, ask away - I love to help.But, if you get hurt, can’t blame me!!